Raymond Chandler
Smart-Aleck Kill(1934)

Contents

ONE

The doorman of the Kilmarnock was six foot two. He wore a pale blue uniform,
and white gloves made his hands look enormous. He opened the door of the Yellow
taxi as gently as an old maid stroking a cat.

Johnny Dalmas got out and turned to the red-haired driver. He said:
"Better wait for me around the corner, Joey."

The driver nodded, tucked a toothpick a little farther back in the corner of
his mouth, and swung his cab expertly away from the white-marked loading zone.
Dalmas crossed the sunny sidewalk and went into the enormous cool lobby of the
Kilmarnock. The carpets were thick, soundless. Bellboys stood with folded arms
and the two clerks behind the marble desk looked austere.

Dalmas went across to the elevator lobby. He got into a paneled car and said:
"End of the line, please."

The penthouse floor had a small quiet lobby with three doors opening off it,
one to each wall. Dalmas crossed to one of them and rang the bell.

Derek Walden opened the door. He was about forty-five, possibly a little
more, and had a lot of powdery gray hair and a handsome, dissipated face that
was beginning to go pouchy. He had on a monogrammed lounging robe and a glass
full of whiskey in his hand. He was a little drunk.

He said thickly, morosely: "Oh, it's you. C'mon in, Dalmas."

He went back into the apartment, leaving the door open. Dalmas shut it and
followed him into a long, high-ceilinged room with a balcony at one end and a
line of french windows along the left side. There was a terrace outside.

Derek Walden sat down in a brown and gold chair against the wall and
stretched his legs across a foot stool. He swirled the whiskey around in his
glass, looking down at it.

"What's on your mind?" he asked.

Dalmas stared at him a little grimly. After a moment he said: "I dropped
in to tell you I'm giving you back your job."

Walden drank the whiskey out of his glass and put it down on the corner of a
table. He fumbled around for a cigarette, stuck it in his mouth and forgot to
light it.

"Tha' so?" His voice was blurred but indifferent.

Dalmas turned away from him and walked over to one of the windows. It was
open and an awning flapped outside. The traffic noise from the boulevard was
faint.

He spoke over his shoulder:

"The investigation isn't getting anywhere-because you don't want it to
get anywhere. You know why you're being blackmailed. I don't. Eclipse Fllms is
interested because they have a lot of sugar tied up in film you have made."

"To hell with Eclipse Films," Walden said, almost quitely.

Dalmas shook his head and turned around. "Not from my angle. They stand
to lose if you get in a jam the publicity hounds can't handle. You took me on
because you were asked to. It was a waste of time. You haven't cooperated worth
a cent."

Walden said in an unpleasant tone: "I'm handling this my own way and I'm
not gettin' into any jam. I'll make my own deal-when I can buy something that'll
stay bought . . . And all you have to do is make the Eclipse people think the
situation's hem' taken care of. That clear?"

Dalmas came partway back across the room. He stood with one hand on top of a
table, beside an ash tray littered with cigarette stubs that had very dark lip
rouge on them. He looked down at these absently.

"That wasn't explained to me, Walden," he said coldly.

"I thought you were smart enough to figure it out," Walden sneered.
He leaned sidewise and slopped some more whiskey into his glass. "Have a
drink?"

Dalmas said: "No, thanks."

Walden found the cigarette in his mouth and threw it on the floor. He drank.
"What the hell!" he snorted. "You're a private detective and
you're being paid to make a few motions that don't mean anything. It's a clean
job-as your racket goes."

Dalmas said: "That's another crack I could do without hearing."

Walden made an abrupt, angry motion. His eyes glittered. The corners of his
mouth drew down and his face got sulky. He avoided Dalmas' stare.

Dalmas said: "I'm not against you, but I never was for you. You're not
the kind of guy I could go for, ever. If you had played with me, I'd have done
what I could. I still will-but not for your sake. I don't want your money-and
you can pull your shadows off my tail any time you like."

Walden put his feet on the floor. He laid his glass down very carefully on
the table at his elbow. The whole expression of his face changed.

"Shadows?I don't get you." He swallowed. "I'm not having you
shadowed."

Dalmas stared at him. After a moment he nodded. "Okey, then. I'll
backtrack on the next one and see if I can make him tell who he's working for11
find out."

Walden said very quietly: "I wouldn't do that, if I were you.
You're-you're monkeying with people that might get nasty . . I know what I'm
talking about."

"That's something I'm not going to let worry me," Dalmas said
evenly. "If it's the people that want your money, they were nasty a long
time ago."

He held his hat out in front of him and looked at it. Walden's face glistened
with sweat. His eyes looked sick. He opened his mouth to say something.

The door buzzer sounded.

Walden scowled quickly, swore. He stared down the room but did not move.

"Too damn many people come here without hem' announced," he
growled. "My Jap boy is off for the day."

The buzzer sounded again, and Walden started to get up. Dalmas said:
"I'll see what it is. I'm on my way anyhow."

He nodded to Walden, went down the room and opened the door.

Two men came in with guns in their hands. One of the guns dug sharply into
Dalmas' ribs, and the man who was holding it said urgently: "Back up, and
make it snappy. This is one of those stick-ups you read about."

He was dark and good-looking and cheerful. His face was as clear as a cameo,
almost without hardness. He smiled.

The one behind him was short and sandy-haired. He scowled. The dark one said:
"This is Walden's dick, Noddy. Take him over and go through him for a
gun."

The sandy-haired man, Noddy, put a short-barreled revolver against Dalmas'
stomach and his partner kicked the door shut, then strolled carelessly down the
room toward Walden.

Noddy took a .38 Colt from under Dalmas' arm, walked around him and tapped
his pockets. He put his own gun away and transferred Dalmas' Colt to his
business hand.

"Okey, Ricchio. This one's clean," he said in a grumbling voice.
Dalmas let his arms fall, turned and went back into the room. He looked
thoughtfully at Walden. Walden was leaning forward with his mouth open and an
expression of intense concentration on his face. Dalmas looked at the dark
stick-up and said softly: "Ricchio?"

The dark boy glanced at him. "Over there by the table, sweetheart. I'll
do all the talkin'."

Walden made a hoarse sound in his throat. Ricchio stood in front of him,
looking down at him pleasantly, his gun dangling from one finger by the trigger
guard.

"You're too slow on the pay-off, Walden. Too damn slow! So we came to
tell you about it. Tailed your dick here too. Wasn't that cute?"

Dalmas said gravely, quietly: "This punk used to be your bodyguard,
Walden-if his name is Ricchio."

Walden nodded silently and licked his lips. Ricchio snarled at Dalmas:
"Don't crack wise, dick. I'm tellin' you again." He stared with hot
eyes, then looked back at Walden, looked at a watch on his wrist.

"It's eight minutes past three, Walden. I figure a guy with your drag
can still get dough out of the bank. We're giving you an hour to raise ten
grand. Just an hour. And we're takin' your shamus along to arrange about
delivery."

Walden nodded again, still silent. He put his hands down on his knees and
clutched them until his knuckles whitened.

Ricchio went on: "We'll play clean. Our racket wouldn't be worth a
squashed bug if we didn't. You'll play clean too. If you don't your shamus will
wake up on a pile of dirt. Only he won't wake up. Get it?"

Dalmas said contemptuously: "And if he pays up-I suppose you turn me
loose to put the finger on you."

Smoothly, without looking at him, Ricchio said: "There's an answer to
that one, too . . . Ten grand today, Walden. The other ten the first of the
week. Unless we have trouble. . . If we do, we'll get paid for our
trouble."

Walden made an aimless, defeated gesture with both hands outspread. "I
guess I can arrange it," he said hurriedly.

"Swell. We'll be on our way then."

Ricchio nodded shortly and put his gun away. He took a brown kid glove out of
his pocket, put it on his right hand, moved across then took Dalmas' Colt away
from the sandyhaired man. He looked it over, slipped it into his side pocket and
held it there with the gloved hand.

"Let's drift," he said with a jerk of his head.

They went out. Derek Walden stared after them bleakly.

The elevator car was empty except for the operator. They got off at the
mezzanine and went across a silent writing room past a stained-glass window with
lights behind it to give the effect of sunshine. Ricchio walked half a step
behind on Dalmas' left. The sandy-haired man was on his right, crowding him.

They went down carpeted steps to an arcade of luxury shops, along that, out
of the hotel through the side entrance. A small brown sedan was parked across
the street. The sandy-haired man slid behind the wheel, stuck his gun under his
leg and stepped on the starter. Ricchio and Dalmas got in the back. Ricchio
drawled: "East on the boulevard, Noddy. I've got to figure."

Noddy grunted. "That's a kick," he growled over his shoulder.
"Ridin' a guy down Wilshire in daylight."

"Drive the heap, bozo."

The sandy-haired man grunted again and drove the small sedan away from the
curb, slowed a moment later for the boulevard stop. An empty Yellow pulled away
from the west curb, swung around in the middle of the block and fell in behind.
Noddy made his stop, turned right and went on. The taxi did the same. Ricchio
glanced back at it without interest. There was a lot of traffic on Wilshire.

Dalmas leaned back against the upholstery and said thoughtfully: "Why
wouldn't Walden use his telephone while we were coming down?"

Ricchio smiled at him. He took his hat off and dropped it in his lap, then
took his right hand out of his pocket and held it under the hat with the gun in
it.

"He wouldn't want us to get mad at him, dick."

"So he lets a couple of punks take me for the ride."

Ricchio said coldly: "It's not that kind of a ride. We need you in our
business . . . And we ain't punks, see?"

Dalmas rubbed his jaw with a couple of fingers. He smiled quickly and
snapped: "Straight ahead at Robertson?"

"Yeah. I'm still figuring," Ricchio said.

"What a brain!" the sandy-haired man sneered.

Ricchio grinned tightly and showed even white teeth. The light changed to red
half a block ahead. Noddy slid the sedan forward and was first in the line at
the intersection. The empty Yellow drifted up on his left. Not quite level. The
driver of it had red hair. His cap was balanced on one side of his head and he
whistled cheerfully past a toothpick.

Dalmas drew his feet back against the seat and put his weight on them. He
pressed his back hard against the upholstery. The tall traffic light went green
and the sedan started forward, then hung a moment for a car that crowded into a
fast left turn. The Yellow slipped forward on the left and the red-haired driver
leaned over his wheel, yanked it suddenly to the right. There was a grinding,
tearing noise. The riveted fender of the taxi plowed over the low-swung fender
of the brown sedan, locked over its left front wheel. The two cars jolted to a
stop.

Horn blasts behind the two cars sounded angrily, impatiently.

Dalmas' right fist crashed against Ricchio's jaw. His left hand closed over
the gun in Ricchio's lap. He jerked it loose as Ricchio sagged in the corner.
Ricchio's head wobbled. His eyes opened and shut flickeringly. Dalmas slid away
from him along the seat and slipped the Colt under his arm.

Noddy was sitting quite still in the front seat. His right hand moved slowly
towards the gun under his thigh. Dalmas opened the door of the sedan and got
out, shut the door, took two steps and opened the door of the taxi. He stood
beside the taxi and watched the sandy-haired man.

Horns of the stalled cars blared furiously. The driver of the Yellow was out
in front tugging at the two cars with a great show of energy and with no result
at all. His toothpick waggled up and down in his mouth. A motorcycle officer in
amber glasses threaded the traffic, looked the situation over wearily, jerked
his head at the driver.

"Get in and back up," he advised. "Argue it out somewhere
else-we use this intersection."

The driver grinned and scuttled around the front end of his Yellow. He
climbed into it, threw it in gear and worried it backwards with a lot of tooting
and arm-waving. It came clear. The sandy-haired man peered woodenly from the
sedan. Dalmas got into the taxi and pulled the door shut.

The motorcycle officer drew a whistle out and blew two sharp blasts on it,
spread his arms from east to west. The brown sedan went through the intersection
like a cat chased by a police dog.

The Yellow went after it. Half a block on, Dalmas leaned forward and tapped
on the glass.

"Let'em go, Joey. You can't catch them and I don't want them . . . That
was a swell routine back there."

The redhead leaned his chin towards the opening in the panel. "Cinch,
chief," he said, grinning. "Try me on on a hard one some time.

TWO

The telephone rang at twenty minutes to five. Dalmas was lying on his back on
the bed. He was in his room at the Merrivale. He reached for the phone without
looking at it, said: "Hello."

The girl's voice was pleasant and a little strained. "This is Mianne
Crayle. Remember?"

Dalmas took a cigarette from between his lips. "Yes, Miss Crayle."

"Listen. You must please go over and see Derek Walden. He's worried
stiff about something and he's drinking himself blind. Something's got to be
done."

Dalmas stared past the phone at the ceiling. The hand holding his cigarette
beat a tattoo on the side of the bed. He said slowly: "He doesn't answer
his phone, Miss Crayle. I've tried to call him a time or two."

There was a short silence at the other end of the line. Then the voice said:
"I left my key under the door. You'd better just go on in."

Dalmas' eyes narrowed. The fingers of his right hand became still. He said
slowly: "I'll get over there right away, Miss Crayle. Where can I reach
you?"

"I'm not sure ... At John Sutro's, perhaps. We were supposed to go
there."

Dalmas said: "That's fine." He waited for the click, then hung up
and put the phone away on the night table. He sat up on the side of the bed and
stared at a patch of sunlight on the wall for a minute or two. Then he shrugged,
stood up. He finished a drink that stood beside the telephone, put on his hat,
went down in the elevator and got into the second taxi in the line outside the
hotel.

"Kilmarnock again, Joey. Step on it."

It took fifteen minutes to get to Kilmarnock.

The tea dance had let out and the streets around the big hotel were a mess of
cars bucking their way out from the three entrances. Dalmas got out of the taxi
half a block away and walked past groups of flushed
débutantes and their escorts to the arcade entrance. He went in, walked
up the stairs to the mezzanine, crossed the writing room and got into an
elevator full of people. They all got out before the penthouse floor.

Dalmas rang Walden's bell twice. Then he bent over and looked under the door.
There was a fine thread of light broken by an obstruction. He looked back at the
elevator indicators, then stooped and teased something out from under the door
with the blade of a penknife. It was a flat key. He went in with it . . .
stopped . . . stared .

There was death in the big room. Dalmas went towards it slowly, walking
softly, listening. There was a hard light in his gray eyes and the bone of his
jaw made a sharp line that was pale against the tan of his cheek.

Derek Walden was slumped almost casually in the brown and gold chair. His
mouth was slightly open. There was a blackened hole in his right temple, and a
lacy pattern of blood spread down the side of his face and across the hollow of
his neck as far as the soft collar of his shirt. His right hand trailed in the
thick nap of the rug. The fingers held a small, black automatic.

The daylight was beginning to fade in the room. Dalmas stood perfectly still
and stared at Derek Walden for a long time. There was no sound anywhere. The
breeze had gone down and the awnings outside the french windows were still.

Dalmas took a pair of thin suede gloves from his left hip pocket and drew
them on. He kneeled on the rug beside Walden and gently eased the gun from the
clasp of his stiffening fingers. It was a .32, with a walnut grip, a black
finish. He turned it over and looked at the stock. His mouth tightened. The
number had been filed off and the patch of file marks glistened faintly against
the dull black of the finish. He put the gun down on the rug and stood up,
walked slowly towards the telephone that was on the end of a library table,
beside a flat bowl of cut flowers.

He put his hand towards the phone but didn't touch it. He let the hand fall
to his side. He stood there a moment, then turned and went quickly back and
picked up the gun again. He slipped the magazine out and ejected the shell that
was in the breech, picked that up and pressed it into the magazine. He forked
two fingers of his left hand over the barrel, held the cocking piece back,
twisted the breech block and broke the gun apart. He took the butt piece over to
the window.

The number that was duplicated on the inside of the stock had not been filed
off.

He reassembled the gun quickly, put the empty shell into the chamber, pushed
the magazine home, cocked the gun and fitted it back into Derek Walden's dead
hand. He pulled the suede gloves off his hands and wrote the number down in a
small notebook.

He left the apartment, went down in the elevator, left the hotel. It was
half-past five and some of the cars on the boulevard had switched on their
lights.

THREE

The blond man who opened the door at Sutro's did it very thoroughly. The door
crashed back against the wall and the blond man sat down on the floor-still
holding on to the knob. He said indignantly: "Earthquake, by gad!"

Dalmas looked down at him without amusement.

"Is Miss Mianne Crayle here-or wouldn't you know?" he asked.

The blond man got off the floor and hurled the door away from him. It went
shut with another crash. He said in a loud voice: "Everybody's here but the
Pope's tomcat-and he's expected."

Dalmas nodded. "You ought to have a swell party."

He went past the blond man down the hall and turned under an arch into a big
old-fashioned room with built-in china closets and a lot of shabby furniture.
There were seven or eight people in the room and they were all flushed with
liquor.

A girl in shorts and a green polo shirt was shooting craps on the floor with
a man in dinner clothes. A fat man with noseglasses was talking sternly into a
toy telephone. He was saying: "Long Distance-Sioux City-and put some snap
into it, sister!"

The radio blared "Sweet Madness."

Two couples were dancing around carelessly bumping into each other and the
furniture. A man who looked like Al Smith was dancing all alone, with a drink in
his hand and an absent expression on his face. A tall, white-faced blonde weaved
towards Dalmas, slopping liquor out of her glass. She shrieked: "Darling!
Fancy meeting you here!"

Dalmas went around her, went towards a saffron-colored woman who had just
come into the room with a bottle of gin in each hand. She put the bottles on the
piano and leaned against it, looking bored. Dalmas went up to her and asked for
Miss Crayle.

The saffron-colored woman reached a cigarette out of an open box on the
piano. "Outside-in the yard, she said tonelessly.

Dalmas said: "Thank you, Mrs. Sutro."

She stared at him blankly. He went under another arch, into a darkened room
with wicker furniture in it. A door led to a glassed-in porch and a door out of
that led down steps to a path that wound off through dim trees. Dalmas followed
the path to the edge of a bluff that looked out over the lighted part of
Hollywood. There was a stone seat at the edge of the bluff. A girl sat on it
with her back to the house. A cigarette tip glowed in the darkness. She turned
her head slowly and stood up.

She was small and dark and delicately made. Her mouth showed dark with rouge,
but there was not enough light to see her face clearly. Her eyes were shadowed.

Dalmas said: "I have a cab outside, Miss Crayle. Or did you bring a
car?"

"No car. Let's go. It's rotten here, and I don't drink gin."

They went back along the path and passed around the side of the house. A
trellis-topped gate let them out on the sidewalk, and they went along by the
fence to where the taxi was waiting. The driver was leaning against it with one
heel hooked on the edge of the running board. He opened the cab door. They got
in.

Dalmas said: "Stop at a drugstore for some butts, Joey."

"Okey."

Joey slid behind his wheel and started up. The cab went down a steep, winding
hill. There was a little moisture on the surface of the asphalt pavement and the
store fronts echoed back the swishing sound of the tires.

After a while Dalmas said: "What time did you leave Walden?"

The girl spoke without turning her head towards him. "About three
o'clock."

"Put it a little later, Miss Crayle. He was alive at three o'clock-and
there was somebody else with him."

The girl made a small, miserable sound like a strangled sob. Then, she said
very softly: "I know ... he's dead." She lifted her gloved hands and
pressed them against her temples.

Dalmas said: "Sure. Let's not get any more tricky than we have to . . .
Maybe we'll have to-enough."

She said very slowly, in a low voice: "I was there after he was
dead."

Dalmas nodded. He did not look at her. The cab went on and after a while it
stopped in front of a corner drugstore. The driver turned in his seat and looked
back. Dalmas stared at him, but spoke to the girl.

"You ought to have told me more over the phone. I might have got in a
hell of a jam. I may be in a hell of a jam now."

The girl swayed forward and started to fall. Dalmas put his arm out quickly
and caught her, pushed her back against the cushions. Her head wobbled on her
shoulders and her mouth was a dark gash in her stone-white face. Dalmas held her
shoulder and felt her pulse with his free hand. He said sharply, grimly:
"Let's go on to Carli's, Joey. Never mind the butts . . . This party has to
have a drink-in a hurry."

Joey slammed the cab in gear and stepped on the accelerator.

FOUR

Carli's was a small club at the end of a passage between a sporting-goods
store and a circulating library. There was a grilled door and a man behind it
who had given up trying to look as if it mattered who came in.

Dalmas and the girl sat in a small booth with hard seats and looped-back
green curtains. There were high partitions between the booths. There was a long
bar down the other side of the room and a big juke box at the end of it. Now and
then, when there wasn't enough noise, the bartender put a nickel in the juke
box.

The waiter put two small glasses of brandy on the table and Mianne Crayle
downed hers at a gulp. A little light came into her shadowed eyes. She peeled a
black and white gauntlet off her right hand and sat playing with the empty
fingers of it, staring down at the table. After a little while the waiter came
back with a couple of brandy highballs.

When he had gone away again Mianne Crayle began to speak in a low, clear
voice, without raising her head: "I wasn't the first of his women by
several dozen. I wouldn't have been the last-by that many more. But he had his
decent side. And believe it or not he didn't pay my room rent."

Dalmas nodded, didn't say anything. The girl went on without looking at him:
"He was a heel in a lot of ways. When he was sober he had the dark blue
sulks. When he was lit up he was vile. When he was nicely edged he was a pretty
good sort of guy besides being the best smut director in Hollywood. He could get
more smooth sexy tripe past the Hays office than any other three men."

Dalmas said without expression: "He was on his way out. Smut is on its
way out, and that was all he knew."

The girl looked at him briefly, lowered her eyes again and drank a little of
her highball. She took a tiny handkerchief out of the pocket of her sports
jacket and patted her lips.

The people on the other side of the partition were making a great deal of
noise.

Mianne Crayle said: "We had lunch on the balcony. Derek was drunk and on
the way to get drunker. He had something on his mind. Something that worried him
a lot."

Dalmas smiled faintly. "Maybe it was the twenty grand somebody was
trying to pry loose from him-or didn't you know about that?"

"It might have been that. Derek was a bit tight about money."

"His liquor cost him a lot," Dalmas said dryly. "And that
motor cruiser he liked to play about in-down below the border."

The girl lifted her head with a quick jerk. There were sharp lights of pain
in her dark eyes. She said very slowly: "He bought all his liquor at
Ensenada. Brought it in himself. He had to be careful-with the quantity he put
away."

Dalmas nodded. A cold smile played about the corners of his mouth. He
finished his drink and put a cigarette in his mouth, felt in his pocket for a
match. The holder on the table was empty.

"Finish your story, Miss Crayle," he said.

"We went up to the apartment. He got two fresh bottles out and said he
was going to get good and drunk . . . Then we quarreled . . . I couldn't stand
any more of it. I went away. When I got home I began to worry about him. I
called up but he wouldn't answer the phone. I went back finally . . . and let
myself in with the key I had . . . and he was dead in the chair."

After a moment Dalmas said: "Why didn't you tell me some of that over
the phone?"

She pressed the heels of her hands together, said very softly: "I was
terribly afraid ... And there was something. . . wrong." Dalmas put his
head back against the partition, stared at her with his eyes half closed.

"It's an old gag," she said. "I'm almost ashamed to spring it.
But Derek Walden was left-handedd know about that, wouldn't I?"

Dalmas said very softly: "A lot of people must have known that-but one
of them might have got careless."

Dalmas stared at Mianne Crayle's empty glove. She was twisting it between her
fingers.

"Walden was left-handed," he said slowly. "That means he
didn't suicide. The gun was in his other hand. There was no sign of a struggle
and the hole in his temple was powder-burned, looked as if the shot came from
about the right angle. That means whoever shot him was someone who could get in
there and get close to him. Or else he was paralyzed drunk, and in that case
whoever did it had to have a key."

Mianne Crayle pushed the glove away from her. She clenched her hands.
"Don't make it any plainer," she said sharply. "I know the police
will think I did it. Well-I didn't. I loved the poor damn fool. What do you
think of that?"

Dalmas said without emotion: "You coul4 have done it, Miss Crayle.
They'll think of that, won't they? And you might be smart enough to act the way
you have afterwards. They 11 think of that, too."

"That wouldn't be smart," she said bitterly. "Just
smartaleck."

"Smart-aleck kill!" Dalmas laughed grimly. "Not bad." He
ran his fingers through his crisp hair. "No, I don't think we can pin it on
you-and maybe the cops won't know he was left-handed . . . until somebody else
gets a chance to find things out."

He leaned over the table a little, put his hands on the edge as if to get up.
His eyes narrowed thoughtfully on her face.

"There's one man downtown that might give me a break. He's all cop, but
he's an old guy and don't give a damn about his publicity. Maybe if you went
down with me, let him size you up and hear the story, he'd stall the case a few
hours and hold out on the papers."

He looked at her questioningly. She drew her glove on and said quietly:
"Let's go."

FIVE

When the elevator doors at the Merrivale closed, the big man put his
newspaper down from in front of his face and yawned. He got up slowly from the
settee in the corner and loafed across the small but sedate lobby. He squeezed
himself into a booth at the end of a row of house phones. He dropped a coin in
the slot and dialed with a thick forefinger, forming the number with his lips.

After a pause he leaned close to the mouthpiece and said: "This is
Denny. I'm at the Merrivale. Our man just came in. I lost him outside and came
here to wait for him to get back."

He had a heavy voice with a burr in it. He listened to the voice at the other
end, nodded and hung up without saying anything more. He went out of the booth,
crossed to the elevators. On the way he dropped a cigar butt into a glazed jar
full of white sand.

In the elevator he said: "Ten," and took his hat off. He had
straight black hair that was damp with perspiration, a wide, flat face and small
eyes. His clothes were unpressed, but not shabby. He was a studio dick and he
worked for Eclipse Films.

He got out at the tenth floor and went along a dim corridor, turned a corner
and knocked at a door. There was a sound of steps inside. The door opened.
Dalmas opened it.

The big man went in, dropped his hat casually on the bed, sat down in an easy
chair by the window without being asked.

He said: "Hi, boy. I hear you need some help."

Dalmas looked at him for a moment without answering. Then he said slowly,
frowningly: "Maybe-for a tail. I asked for Collins. I thought you'd be too
easy to spot."

He turned away and went into the bathroom, came out with two glasses. He
mixed the drinks on the bureau, handed one. The big man drank, smacked his lips
and put his glass down on the sill of the open window. He took a short, chubby
cigar out of his vest pocket.

"Collins wasn't around," he said. "And I was just countin' my
thumbs. So the big cheese give me the job. Is it footwork?"

"I don't know. Probably not," Dalmas said indifferently.

"If it's a tail in a car, I'm okey. I brought my little coupe."

Dalmas took his glass and sat down on the side of the bed. He stared at the
big man with a faint smile. The big man bit the end off his cigar and spit it
out.

Then he bent over and picked up the piece, looked at it, tossed it out of the
window.

"It's a swell night. A bit warm for so late in the year," he said.

Dalmas said slowly: "How well do you know Derek Walden, Denny?"

Denny looked out of the window. There was a sort of haze in the sky and the
reflection of a red neon sign behind a nearby building looked like a fire.

He said: "I don't what you call know him. I've seen him around. I know
he's one of the big money guys on the lot."

"Then you won't fall over if I tell you he's dead," Dalmas said
evenly.

Denny turned around slowly. The cigar, still unlighted, moved up and down in
his wide mouth. He looked mildly interested.

Dalmas went on: "It's a funny one. A blackmail gang has been working on
him, Denny. Looks like it got his goat. He's dead-with a hole in his head and a
gun in his hand. It happened this afternoon."

Denny opened his small eyes a little wider. Dalmas sipped his drink and
rested the glass on his thigh.

"His girl friend found him. She had a key to the apartment in the
Kilmarnock. The Jap boy was away and that's all the help he kept. The gal didn't
tell anyone. She beat it and called me up. I went over . . . I didn't tell
anybody either."

The big man said very slowly: "For Pete's sake! The cops'!! stick it
into you and break it off, brother. You can't get away with that stuff."

Dalmas stared at him, then turned his head away and stared at a picture on
the wall. He said coldly: "I'm doing it-and you're helping me. We've got a
job, and a damn powerful organization behind us. There's a lot of sugar at
stake."

"How do you figure?" Denny asked grimly. He didn't look pleased.

"The girl friend doesn't think Walden suicided, Denny. I don't either,
and I've got a sort of lead. But it has to be worked fast, because it's as good
a lead for the law as us. I didn't expect to be able to check it right away, but
I got a break."

Denny said: "Uh-huh. Don't make it too clever. I'm a slow thinker."

He struck a match and lit his cigar. His hand shook just a little.

Dalmas said: "It's not clever. It's kind of dumb. The gun that killed
Walden is a filed gun. But I broke it and the inside number wasn't filed. And
Headquarters has the number, in the special permits."

"And you just went in and asked for it and they gave it to you,"
Denny said grimly. "And when they pick Walden up and trace the gun
themselves, they'll just think it was swell of you to beat them to it." He
made a harsh noise in his throat.

Dalmas said: "Take it easy, boy. The guy that did the checking rates. I
don't have to worry about that."

"Like hell you don't! And what would a guy like Walden be doin' with a
filed gun? That's a felony rap."

Dalmas finished his drink and carried his empty glass over to the bureau. He
held the whiskey bottle out. Denny shook his head. He looked very disgusted.

"If he had the gun, he might not have known about that, Denny. And it
could be that it wasn't his gun at all. If it was a killer's gun, then the
killer was an amateur. A professional wouldn't have that kind of
artillery."

The big man said slowly: "Okey, what you get on the rod?"

Dalmas sat down on the bed again. He dug a package of cigarettes out of his
pocket, lit one, and leaned forward to toss the match through the open window.
He said: "The permit was issued about a year ago to a newshawk on the
PressChronicle, name of Dart Burwand. This Burwand was bumped off last April on
the ramp of the Arcade Depot. He was all set to leave town, but he didn't make
it. They never cracked the case, but the hunch is that this Burwand was tied to
some racket-like the Lingle killing in Chi-and that he tried to shake one of the
big boys. The big boy backfired on the idea. Exit Burwand."

The big man was breathing deeply. He had let his cigar go out. Dalmas watched
him gravely while he talked.

"I got that from Westfalls, on the Press-Chronicle," Dalmas said.
"He's a friend of mine. There's more of it. This gun was given back to
Burwand's wife-probabIy,. She still lives here-out on North Kenmore. She might
tell me what she did with the gun . . . and she might be tied to some racket
herself, Denny. In that case she wouldn't tell me, but after I talk to her she
might make some contacts we ought to know about. Get the idea?"

Denny struck another match and held it on the end of his cigar. His voice
said thickly: "What do I do-tail the broad after you put the idea to her,
about the gun?"

"Right."

The big man stood up, pretended to yawn. "Can do," he grunted.
"But why all the hush-hush about Walden? Why not let the cops work it out?
We're just goin' to get ourselves a lot of bad marks at Headquarters."

Dalmas said slowly: "It's got to be risked. We don't know what the
blackmail crowd had on Walden, and the studio stands to lose too much money if
it comes out in the investigation and gets a front-page spread all over the
country."

Denny said: "You talk like Walden was spelled Valentino. Hell, the guy's
only a director. All they got to do is take his name off a couple of unreleased
pictures."

Denny said roughly: "Okey. But me, I'd let the girl friend take the damn
rap! All the law ever wants is a fall guy."

He went around the bed to get his hat, crammed it on his head.

"Swell," he said sourly. "We gotta find out all about it
before the cops even know Walden is dead." He gestured with one hand and
laughed mirthlessly. "Like they do in the movies."

Dalmas put the whiskey bottle away in the bureau drawer and put his hat on.
He opened the door and stood aside for Denny to go out. He switched off the
lights.

It was ten minutes to nine.

SIX

The tall blonde looked at Dalmas out of greenish eyes with very small pupils.
He went in past her quickly, without seeming to move quickly. He pushed the door
shut with his elbow.

He said: "I'm a dick-private-Mrs. Burwand. Trying to dig up a little
dope you might know about."

The blonde said: "The name is Dalton, Helen Dalton. Forget the Burwand
stuff."

Dalmas smiled and said: "I'm sorry. I should have known." The
blonde shrugged her shoulders and drifted away from the door. She sat down on
the edge of a chair that had a cigarette burn on the arm. The room was a
furnished-apartment living room with a lot of department
store bric-à-brac spread around. Two floor lamps burned. There were
flounced pillows on the floor, a French doll sprawled against the base of one
lamp, and a row of gaudy novels went across the mantel, above the gas fire.

Dalmas said politely, swinging his hat: "It's about a gun Dart Burwand
used to own. It's showed up on a case I'm working. I'm trying to trace it-from
the time you had it."

Helen Dalton scratched the upper part of her arm. She had half-inch-long
fingernails. She said curtly: "I don't have an idea what you're talking
about."

Dalmas stared at her and leaned against the wall. His voice got on edge.

"Maybe you remember that you used to be married to Dart Burwand and that
he got bumped off last April . . . Or is that too far back?"

The blonde bit one of her knuckles and said: "Smart guy, huh?"

"Not unless I have to be. But don't fall asleep from that last shot in
the arm."

Helen Dalton sat up very straight, suddenly. All the vagueness went out of
her expression. She spoke between tight lips.

"What's the how! about the gun?"

"It killed a guy, that's all," Dalmas said carelessly.

She stared at him. After a moment she said: "I was broke. I hocked it. I
never got it out. I had a husband that made sixty bucks a week but didn't spend
any of it on me. I never had a dime."

Dalmas nodded. "Remember the pawnshop where you left it?" he asked.
"Or maybe you still have the ticket."

"No. It was on Main. The street's lined with them. And I don't have the
ticket."

Dalmas said: "I was afraid of that."

He walked slowly across the room, looked at the titles of some of the books
on the mantel. He went on and stood in front of a small, folding desk. There was
a photo in a silver frame on the desk. Dalmas stared at it for some time. He
turned slowly.

"It's too bad about the gun, Helen. A pretty important name was rubbed
out with it this afternoon. The number was filed off the outside. If you hocked
it, I'd figure some hood bought it from the hockshop guy, except that a hood
wouldn't file a gun that way. He'd know there was another number inside. So it
wasn't a hood-and the man it was found with wouldn't be likely to get a gun in a
hock shop."

The blonde stood up slowly. Red spots burned in her cheeks. Her arms were
rigid at her sides and her breath whispered. She said slowly, strainedly:
"You can't maul me around, dick. I don't want any part of any police
business-and I've got some good friends to take care of me. Better scram."

Dalmas looked back towards the frame on the desk. He said: "Johnny Sutro
oughtn't to leave his mug around in a broad's apartment that way. Somebody might
think he was cheating."

The blonde walked stiff-legged across the room and slammed the photo into the
drawer of the desk. She slammed the drawer shut, and leaned her hips against the
desk.

"You're all Wet, shamus. That's not anybody called Sutro. Get on out,
will you, for gawd's sake?"

Dalmas laughed unpleasantly. "I saw you at Sutro's house this afternoon.
You were so drunk you don't remember."

The blonde made a movement as though she were going to jump at him. Then she
stopped, rigid. A key turned in the room door. It opened and a man came in. He
stood just inside the door and pushed it shut very slowly. His right hand was in
the pocket of a light tweed overcoat. He was dark-skinned, high-shouldered,
angular, with a sharp nose and chin.

The man looked past Dalmas at the girl. He took no notice of Dalmas. The girl
said shakily: "This guy says he's a dick. He's giving me a third about some
gun he says I had. Throw him out, will you?"

Sutro said: "A dick, eh?"

He walked past Dalmas without looking at him. The blonde backed away from him
and fell into a chair. Her face got a pasty look and her eyes were scared. Sutro
looked down at her for a moment, then turned around and took a small automatic
out of his pocket. He held it loosely, pointed down at the floor.

He said: "I haven't a lot of time."

Dalmas said: "I was just going." He moved near the door. Sutro said
sharply: "Let's have the story first."

Dalmas said: "Sure."

He moved lithely, without haste, and threw the door wide open. The gun jerked
up in Sutro's hand. Dalmas said: "Don't be a sap. You're not starting
anything here and you know it."

The two men stared at each other. After a moment or two Sutro put the gun
back into his pocket and licked his thin lips. Dalmas said: "Miss Dalton
had a gun once that killed a man-recently. But she hasn't had it for a long
time. That's all I wanted to know."

Sutro nodded slowly. There was a peculiar expression in his eyes.

"Miss Dalton is a friend of my wife's. I wouldn't want her to be
bothered," he said coldly.

"That's right. You wouldn't," DalmaS said "But a legitimate
dick has a right to ask legitimate questions. I didn't break in here."

Sutro eyed him slowly: "Okey, but take it easy on my friends. I draw
water in this town and I could hang a sign on you."

Dalmas nodded. He went quietly out of the door and shut it. He listened a
moment, There was no sound inside that he could hear. He shrugged and went on
down the hall, down three steps and across a small lobby that had no
switchboard. Outside the apartment house he looked along the street. It was an
apartment-house district and there were cars parked up and down the street. He
went towards the lights of the taxi that was waiting for him.

Joey, the red-haired driver, was standing on the edge of the curb in front of
his hack. He was smoking a cigarette, staring across the street, apparently at a
big, dark coupe that was parked with its left side to the curb. As Dalmas came
up to him he threw his cigarette away and came to meet him.

He spoke quickly: "Listen, boss. I got a look at the guy in that
Cad-"

Pale flame broke in bitter streaks from above the door of the coupe. A gun
racketed between the buildings that faced each other across the street. Joey
fell against Dalmas. The coupe jerked into sudden motion. Dalmas went down
sidewise, on to one knee, with the driver clinging to him, He tried to reach his
gun, couldn't make it. The coupe went around the corner with a squeal of rubber,
and Joey fell down Dalmas' side and rolled over on his back on the sidewalk. He
beat his hands up and down on the cement and a hoarse, anguished sound came from
deep inside him.

Tires screeched again and Dalmas flung up to his feet, swept his hand to his
left armpit. He relaxed as a small car skidded to a stop and Denny fell out of
it, charged across the intervening space towards him.

Dalmas bent over the driver. Light from the lanterns beside the entrance to
the apartment house showed blood on the front of Joey's whipeord jacket, blood
that was seeping out through the material. Joey's eyes opened and shut like the
eyes of a dying bird.

Denny said: "No use to follow that bus. Too fast."

"Get on a phone and call an ambulance," Dalmas said quickly.
"The kid's got a bellyful ... Then take a plant on the blonde."

The big man hurried back to his car, jumped into it and tore off around the
corner. A window went open somewhere and a man yelled down. Some cars stopped.

SEVEN

The homicide lieutenant's name was Weinkassel. He had thin, blond hair, icy
blue eyes and a lot of pockmarks. He sat in a swivel chair with his feet on the
edge of a pulled-out drawer and a telephone scooped close to his elbow. The room
smelled of dust and cigar butts.

A man named Lonergan, a bulky dick with gray hair and a gray mustache, stood
near an open window, looking out of it morosely.

Weinkassel chewed on a match, stared at Dalmas, who was across the desk from
him. He said: "Better talk a bit. The hack driver can't. You've had luck in
this town and you wouldn't want to run it into the ground."

Lonergan said: "He's hard. He won't talk." He didn't turn around
when he said it.

"A little less of your crap would go farther, Lonnie," Weinkassel
said in a dead voice.

Dalmas smiled faintly and rubbed the palm of his hand against the side of the
desk. It made a squeaking sound.

"What would I talk about?" he asked. "It was dark and I didn't
get a flash of the man behind the gun. The car was a Cadillac coupe, without
lights. I've told you this already, Lieutenant."

"It don't listen," Weinkassel grumbled. "There's something
screwy about it. You gotta have some kind of a hunch who it could be. It's a
cinch the gun was for you.'

Dalmas said: "Why? The hack driver was hit and I wasn't. Those lads get
around a lot. One of them might be in wrong with some tough boys."

"Like you," Lonergan said. He went on staring out of the window.

Weinkassel frowned at Lonergan's back and said patiently: "The car was
outside while you was still inside. The hack driver was outside. If the guy with
the gun had wanted him, he didn't have to wait for you to come out."

Dalmas spread his hands and shrugged. "You boys think I know who it
was?"

"Not exactly. We think you could give us some names to check on, though.
Who'd you go to see in them apartments?"

Dalmas didn't say anything for a moment. Lonergan turned away from the
window, sat on the end of the desk and swung his legs. There was a cynical grin
on his flat face.

"Come through, baby," he said cheerfully.

Dalmas tilted his chair back and put his hands into his pockets. He stared at
Weinkassel speculatively, ignored the gray-haired dick as though he didn't
exist.

He said slowly: "I was there on business for a client. You can't make me
talk about that."

Weinkassel shrugged and stared at him coldly. Then he took the chewed match
out of his mouth, looked at the flattened end of it, tossed it away.

"I might have a hunch your business had something to do with the
shootin'," he said grimly. "That way the hush-hush would be out.
Wouldn't it?"

"Maybe," Da!mas said. "If that's the way it's going to work
out. But I ought to have a chance to talk to my client."

Weinkassel said: "Okey. You can have till the morning. Then you put your
papers on the desk, see."

Dalmas nodded and stood up. "Fair enough, Lieutenant."

"Hush-hush is all a shamus knows," Lonergan said roughly.

Dalmas nodded to Weinkassel and went out of the office. He walked down a
bleak corridor and up steps to the lobby floor. Outside the City Hall he went
down a long flight of concrete steps and across Spring Street to where a blue
Packard roadster, not very new, was parked. He got into it and drove around the
corner, then though the Second Street tunnel, dropped over a block and drove out
west. He watched in the mirror as he drove.

At Alvarado he went into a drugstore and called his hotel. The clerk gave him
a number to call. He called it and heard Denny's heavy voice at the other end of
the line. Denny said urgently: "Where you been? I've got that broad out
here at my place. She's drunk. Come on out and we'll get her to tell us what you
want to know."

Dalmas stared out through the glass of the phone booth without seeing
anything. After a pause he said slowly: "The blonde? How come?"

"It's a story, boy. Come on out and I'll give it to you.
Fourteen-fifty-four South Livesay. Know where that is?"

"I've got a map. I'll find it," Dalmas said in the same tone.

Denny told him just how to find it, at some length. At the end of the
explanation he said: "Make it fast. She's asleep now, but she might wake up
and start yellin' murder."

Dalmas said: "Where you live it probably wouldn't matter muchI'll be
right out, Denny."

He hung up and went out to his car. He got a pint bottle of bourbon out of
the car pocket and took a long drink. Then he started up and drove towards Fox
Hills. Twice on the way he stopped and sat still in the car, thinking. But each
time he went on again.

EIGHT

The road turned off Pico into a scattered subdivision that spread itself out
over rolling hills between two golf courses. It followed the edge of one of the
golf courses, separated from it by a high wire fence. There were bungalows here
and there dotted about the slopes. After a while the road dipped into a hollow
and there was a single bungalow in the hollow, right across the street from the
golf course.

Dalmas drove past it and parked under a giant eucalyptus that etched deep
shadow on the moonlit surface of the road. He got out and walked back, turned up
a cement path to the bungalow. It was wide and low and had cottage windows
across the front. Bushes grew halfway up the screens. There was faint light
inside and the sound of a radio, turned low, came through the open windows.

A shadow moved across the screens and the front door came open. Dalmas went
into a living room built across the front of the house. One small bulb burned in
a lamp and the luminous dial of the radio glowed. A little moonlight came into
the room.

Denny had his coat off and his sleeves rolled up on his big arms.

He said: "The broad's still asleep. I'll wake her up when I've told you
how I got her here."

Dalmas said: "Sure you weren't tailed?"

"Not a chance." Denny spread a big hand.

Dalmas sat down in a wicker chair in the corner, between the radio and the
end of the line of windows. He put his hat on the floor, pulled out the bottle
of bourbon and regarded it with a dissatisfied air.

"Buy us a real drink, Denny. I'm tired as hell. Didn't get any
dinner."

Denny said: "I've got some Three-Star Martel. Be right up."

He went out of the room and light went on in the back part of the house.
Dalmas put the bottle on the floor beside his hat and rubbed two fingers across
his forehead. His head ached. After a little while the light went out in the
back and Denny came back with two tall glasses.

The brandy tasted clean and hard. Denny sat down in another wicker chair. He
looked very big and dark in the half-lit room. He began to talk slowly, in his
gruff voice.

"It sounds goofy, but it worked. After the cops stopped milling around I
parked in the alley and went in the back way. I knew which apartment the broad
had but I hadn't seen her. I thought I'd make some kind of a stall and see how
she was makin' out. I knocked on her door, but she wouldn't answer. I could hear
her movin' around inside, and in a minute I could hear a telephone hem' dialed.
I went back along the hall and tried the service door. It opened and I went in.
It fastened with one of them screw bolts that get out of line and don't fasten
when you think they do."

Dalmas nodded, said: "I get the idea, Denny."

The big man drank out of his glass and rubbed the edge of it up and down on
his lower lip. He went on.

"She was phoning a guy named Gayn Donner. Know him?"

"I've heard of him," Dalmas said. "So she has that kind of
connections."

"She was callin' him by name and she sounded mad," Denny said.
"That's how I knew. Donner has that place on Mariposa Canyon Drive-the
Mariposa Club. You hear his band over the air-Hank Munn and his boys."

Dalmas said: "I've heard it, Denny."

"Okey. When she hung up I went in on her. She looked snowed, weaved
around funny, didn't seem to know much what was going on. I looked around and
there was a photo of John Sutro, the Councilman, in a desk there. I used that
for a stall. I said that Sutro wanted her to duck out for a while and that I was
one of his boys and she was to come along. She fell for it. Screwy. She wanted
some liquor. I said I had some in the car. She got her little hat and
coat."

Dalmas said softly: "It was that easy, huh?"

"Yeah," Denny said. He finished his drink and put the glass
somewhere. "I bottle-fed her in the car to keep her quiet and we came out
here. She went to sleep and that's that. What do you figure? Tough
downtown?"

"Tough enough," Dalmas said. "I didn't fool the boys
much."

"Anything on the Walden kill?"

Dalmas shook his head slowly.

"I guess the Jap didn't get home yet, Denny."

"Want to talk to the broad?"

The radio was playing a waltz. Dalmas listened to it for a moment before he
answered. Then he said in a tired voice: "I guess that's what I came out
here for."

Denny got up and went out of the room. There was the sound of a door opening
and muffled voices.

Dalmas took his gun out from under his arm and put it down in the chair
beside his leg.

The blonde staggered a little too much as she came in. She stared around,
giggled, made vague motions with her long hands. She blinked at Dalmas, stood
swaying a moment, then slid down into the chair Denny had been sitting in. The
big man kept near her and leaned against a library table that stood by the
Inside wall.

She said drunkenly: "My old pal the dick. Hey, hey, stranger! How about
buyin' a lady a drink?"

Dalmas stared at her without expression. He said slowly: "Got any new
ideas about that gun? You know, the one we were talking about when Johnny Sutro
crashed in . . . The filed gun. . . The gun that killed Derek Walden."

Denny stiffened, then made a sudden motion towards his hip. Dalmas brought
his Colt up and came to his feet with it. Denny looked at it and became still,
relaxed. The girl had not moved at all, but the drunkenness dropped away from
her like a dead leaf. Her face was suddenly tense and bitter.

Dalmas said evenly: "Keep the hands in sight, Denny, and everything'll
be jake . . . Now suppose you two cheap crossers tell me what I'm here
for."

The big man said thickly: "For gawd's sake! What's eatin' you? You
scared me when you said 'Walden' to the girl."

Dalmas grinned, "That's all right, Denny. Maybe she never heard of him.
Let's get this ironed Out in a hurry. I have an idea I'm here for trouble."

"You're crazy as hell!" the big man snarled.

Dalmas moved the gun slightly. He put his back against the end wall of the
room, leaned over and turned the radio off with his left hand, Then he spoke
bitterly: "You sold out, Denny. That's easy. You're too big for a tail and
I've spotted you following me around half a dozen times lately. When you horned
in on the deal tonight I was pretty sure . . . And when you told me that funny
story about how you got baby out here I was damn sure , . . Hell's sake, do you
think a guy that's stayed alive as long as I have would believe that one? Come
on, Denny, be a sport and tell me who you're working for . . . I might let you
take a powder . . . Who you working for? Donner? Sutro? Or somebody I don't
know? And why the plant out here in the woods?"

The girl shot to her feet suddenly and sprang at him. He threw her off with
his free hand and she sprawled on the floor. She yelled: "Get him, you big
punk? Get him!"

Denny didn't move. "Shut up, snow-bird!" Dalmas snapped.
"Nobody's getting anybody. This is just a talk between friends. Get up on
your feet and stop throwing curves!"

The blonde stood up slowly.

Denny's face had a stony, immovable look in the dimness. His voice came with
a dull rasp. He said: "I sold out. It was lousy. Okey, that's that. I got
fed up with watchin' a bunch of extra girls trying to pinch each other's
lipstick . . . You can take a plug at me, if you feel like it."

He still didn't move. Dalmas nodded slowly and said again: "Who is it,
Denny? Who you working for?"

Denny said: "I don't know. I call a number, get orders, and report that
way. I get dough in the mail. I tried to break the twist here, but no luck . . .
I don't think you're on the spot and I don't know a damn thing about that
shootin' in the street."

The big man raised his head slowly. The room suddenly seemed to get very
still. A car had stopped outside. The faint throbbing of its motor died.

A red spotlight hit the top of the screens.

It was blinding. Dalmas slid down on one knee, shifted his position sidewise
very quickly, silently. Denny's harsh voice in the silence said: "Cops, for
gawd's sake!"

The red light dissolved the wire mesh of the screens into a rosy glow, threw
a great splash of vivid color on the oiled finish of the inside wall. The girl
made a choked sound and her face was a red mask for an instant before she sank
down out of the fan of light. Dalmas looked intp the light, his head low behind
the sill of the end window. The leaves of the bushes were black spearpoints in
the red glare.

Steps sounded on the walk.

A harsh voice rasped: "Everybody out! Mitts in the air!"

There was a sound of movement inside the house. Dalmas swung his
gun-uselessly. A switch clicked and a porch light went on. For a moment, before
they dodged back, two men in blue police uniforms showed up in the cone of the
porch light. One of them held a sub-machine gun and the other had a long Luger
with a special magazine fitted to it.

There was a grating sound. Denny was at the door, opening the peep panel. A
gun came up in his hand and crashed.

Something heavy clattered on the cement and a man swayed forward into the
light, swayed back again. His hands were against his middle. A stiff-vizored cap
fell down and rolled on the walk.

Dalmas hit the floor low down against the baseboard as the machine gun cut
loose. He ground his face into the wood of the floor. The girl screamed behind
him.

The chopper raked the room swiftly from end to end and the air filled with
plaster and splinters. A wall mirror crashed down. A sharp stench of powder
fought with the sour smell of the plaster dust. This seemed to go on for a very
long time. Something fell across Dalmas' legs. He kept his eyes shut and his
face pressed against the floor,

The stuttering and crashing stopped. The rain of plaster inside the wails
kept on. A voice yelled: "How d'you like it, pals?"

Another voice far back snapped angrily: "Come on-let's go!"

Steps sounded again, and a dragging sound. More steps. The motor of the car
roared into life. A door slammed heavily. Tires screeched on the gravel of the
road and the song of the motor swelled and died swiftly.

Dalmas got up on his feet. His ears boomed and his nostrils were dry. He got
his gun off the floor, unclipped a thin flash from an inside pocket, snapped it
on. It probed weakly through the dusty air. The blonde lay on her back with her
eyes wide open and her mouth twisted into a sort of grin. She was sobbing.
Dalmas bent over her. There didn't seem to be a mark on her.

He went on down the room. He found his hat untouched beside the chair that
had half the top shot off. The bottle of bourbon lay beside the hat. He picked
them both up. The man with the chopper had raked the room waist-high, back and
forth, without lowering it far enough. Dalmas went on farther, came to the door.

Denny was on his knees in front of the door. He was swaying backwards and
forwards and holding one of his hands in the other. Blood dribbled between his
thick fingers.

Dalmas got the door open and went out. There was a smear of blood and a
litter of shells on the walk. There was nobody in sight. He stood there with the
blood beating in his face, like little hammers. The skin around his nose
prickled.

He drank some whiskey out of the bottle and turned and went back into the
house. Denny was up on his feet now. He had a handkerchief out and was tying it
around his bloody hand. He looked dazed, drunk. He swayed on his feet. Dalmas
put the beam of the flash on his face.

He said: "Hurt much?"

"No. Clipped on the hand," the big man said thickly. His fingers
were clumsy on the handkerchief.

"The blonde's scared blind," Dalmas said. "It's your party,
boy. Nice pals you have. They meant to get all three of us. You rattled them
when you took a pot out of the peephole. I guess I owe you something for that,
Denny . . . The gunner wasn't so good."

Denny said: "Where you goin'?"

"Where d'you think?"

Denny looked at him. "Sutro's your man," he said slowly. "I'm
through-washed up. They can all go to hell."

Dalmas went through the door again, down the path to the street. He got into
his car and drove away without lights. When he had turned corners and gone some
distance he switched the lights on and got out and dusted himself off.

NINE

Black and silver curtains opened in an inverted V against a haze of cigarette
and cigar smoke. The brasses of the dance band shot brief flashes of color
through the haze. There was a smell of food and liquor and perfume and face
powder. The dance floor was an empty splash of amber light and looked slightly
larger than a screen star's bath mat.

Then the band started up and the lights went down, and a headwaiter came up
the carpeted steps tapping a gold pencil against the satin stripe of his
trousers. He had narrow, lifeless eyes and blond-white hair sleeked back off a
bony forehead.

Dalmas said: "I'd like to see Mister Donner."

The headwaiter tapped his teeth with his gold pencil. "I'm afraid he's
busy. What name?"

"Dalmas. Tell him I'm a special friend of Johnny Sutro's."

The headwaiter said: "I'll try."

He went across to a panel that had a row of buttons on it and a small
one-piece phone. He took it off the hook and put it to his ear, staring at
Dalmas across the cup with the impersonal stare of a stuffed animal.

Dalmas said: "I'll be in the lobby."

He went back through the curtains and prowled over to the Men's Room. Inside
he got out the bottle of bourbon and drank what was left of it, tilting his head
back and standing splaylegged in the middle of the tiled floor. A wizened Negro
in a white jacket fluttered at him, said anxiously: "No drinkin' in here,
boss."

Dalmas threw the empty bottle into a receptacle for towels. He took a clean
towel off the glass shelf, wiped his lips with it, put a dime down on the edge
of the basin and went out.

There was a space between an inner and outer door. He leaned against the
outer door and took a small automatic about four inches long out of his vest
pocket. He held it with three fingers against the inside of his hat and went on
out, swinging the hat gently beside his body.

After a while a tall Filipino with silky black hair came into the lobby and
looked around. Dalmas went towards him. The headwaiter looked out through the
curtains and nodded at the Filipino.

The Filipino spoke to Dalmas: "This way, boss."

They went down a long, quiet corridor. The sound of the dance band died away
behind them. Some deserted green-topped tables showed through an open door. The
corridor turned into another that was at right angles, and at the end of this
one some light came out through a doorway.

The Filipino paused in midstride and made a graceful, complicated movement,
at the end of which he had a big, black automatic in his hand. He prodded it
politely into Dalmas' ribs.

"Got to frisk you, boss. House rules."

Dalmas stood still and held his arms out from his sides. The Filipino took
Dalmas' Colt away from him and dropped it into his pocket. He patted the rest of
Dalmas' pockets, stepped back and holstered his own cannon.

Dalmas lowered his arms and let his hat fall on the floor and the little
automatic that had been inside the hat peered neatly at the Filipino's belly.
The Filipino looked down at it with a shocked grin.

Dalmas said: That was fun, spig. Let me do it.

He put his Colt back where it belonged, took the big automatic from under the
Filipino's arm, slipped the magazine out of it and ejected the shell that was in
the chamber. He gave the empty gun back to the Filipino.

"You can still use it for a sap. If you stay in front of me, your boss
don't have to know that's all it's good for."

The Filipino licked his lips. Dalmas felt him for another gun, and they went
on along the corridor, went in at the door that was partly open. The Filipino
went first.

It was a big room with walls paneled in diagonal strips of wood. A yellow
Chinese rug on the floor, plenty of good furniture, countersunk doors that told
of soundproofing, and no windows. There were several gilt gratings high up and a
builtin ventilator fan made a faint, soothing murmur. Four men were in the room.
Nobody said anything.

Dalmas sat down on a leather divan and stared at Ricchio, the smooth boy who
had walked him out of Walden's apartment. Ricchio was tied to a high-backed
chair. His arms were pulled around behind it and fastened together at the
wrists. His eyes were mad and his face was a welter of blood and bruises. He had
been pistol whipped. The sandy-haired man, Noddy, who had been with him at the
Kilmarnock sat on a sort of stool in the corner, smoking.

John Sutro was rocking slowly in a red leather rocker, staring down at the
floor. He did not look up when Dalmas came into the room.

The fourth man sat behind a desk that looked as if it had cost a lot of
money. He had soft brown hair parted in the middle and brushed back and down;
thin lips and reddish-brown eyes that had hot lights in them. He watched Mallory
while he sat down and looked around. Then he spoke, glancing at Ricchio.

"The punk got a little out of hand. We've been telling him about it. I
guess you're not sorry."

Dalmas laughed shortly, without mirth. "All right as far as it goes,
Donner. How about the other one? I don't see any marks on him."

"Noddy's all right. He worked under orders," Donner said evenly. He
picked up a long-handled file and began to file one of his nails. "You and
I have things to talk about. That's why you got in here. You look all right to
me-if you don't try to cover too much ground with your private-dick
racket."

Dalmas' eyes widened a little. He said: "I'm listening, Donner."

Sutro lifted his eyes and stared at the back of Donner's head. Donner went on
talking in a smooth indifferent voice.

"I know all about the play at Derek Walden's place and I know about the
shooting on Kenmore. If I'd thought Ricchio would go that crazy, I'd have
stopped him before. As it is, I figure it's up to me to straighten things out .
. . And when we get through here Mister Ricchio will go downtown and speak his
piece.

"Here's how it happened. Ricchio used to work for Walden when the
Hollywood crowd went in for bodyguards. Walden bought his liquor in
Ensenada-still does, for all I know-and brought it in himself. Nobody bothered
him. Ricchio saw a chance to bring in some white goods under good cover. Walden
caught him at it. He didn't want a scandal, so he just showed Ricchio the gate.
Ricchio took advantage of that by trying to shake Walden down, on the theory
that he wasn't clean enough to stand the working-over the Feds would give him.
Walden didn't shake fast enough to suit Ricchio, so he went hog-wild and decided
on a strong-arm play. You and your driver messed it up and Ricchio went gunning
for you."

Donner put down his file and smiled. Dalmas shrugged and glanced at the
Filipino, who was standing by the wall, at the end of the divan.

Dalmas said: "I don't have your organization, Donner, but I get around.
I think that's a smooth story and it would have got by-with a little
Co-operation downtown. But it won't fit the facts as they are now. "

Donner raised his eyebrows. Sutro began to swing the tip of his polished shoe
up and down in front of his knee.

Dalmas said: "How does Mister Sutro fit into all this?"

Sutro stared at him and stopped rocking. He made a swift, impatient movement.
Donner smiled "He's a friend of Walden's. Walden talked to him a little and
Sutro knows Ricchio worked for me. But being a councilman he didn't want to tell
Walden everything he knew."

Dalmas said grimly: "I'll tell you what's wrong with your story, Donner.
There's not enough fear in it. Walden was too scared to help me even when I was
working for him . . . And this afternoon somebody was so scared of him that he
got shot."

Donner leaned forward and his eyes got small and tight. His hands balled into
fists on the desk before him.

"Walden is-dead?" he almost whispered.

Dalmas nodded. "Shot in the right temple ... with a thirtytwo. It looks
like suicide. It isn't."

Sutro put his hand up quickly and covered his face. The sandy-haired man got
rigid on his stool in the corner.

Dalmas said: "Want to hear a good honest guess, Donner? . . . We'll call
it a guess . . . Walden was in the dopesmuggling racket himself-and not all by
his lonesome. But after Repeal he wanted to quit. The coast guards wouldn't have
to spend so much time watching liquor ships, and dope-smuggling up the coast
wasn't going to be gravy any more. And Walden got sweet on a gal that had good
eyes and could add up to ten. So he wanted to walk out on the dope racket."

Donner moistened his lips and said: "What dope racket?"

Dalmas eyed him. "You wouldn't know about anything like that, would you,
Donner? Hell, no, that's something for the bad boys to play with. And the bad
boys didn't like the idea of Walden quitting that way. He was drinking too
much-and he might start to broadcast to his girl friend. They wanted him to quit
the way he did-on the receiving end of a gun."

Donner turned his head slowly and stared at the bound man on the high-backed
chair. He said very softly: "Ricchio."

Then he got up and walked around his desk. Sutro took his hand down from his
face and watched with his lips shaking.

Donner stood in front of Ricchio. He put his hand out against Ricchio's head
and jarred it back against the chair. Ricchio moaned. Donner smiled down at him.

"I must be slowing up. You killed Walden, you bastard! You went back and
croaked him. You forgot to tell us about that part, baby."

Ricchio opened his mouth and spit a stream of blood against Donner's hand and
wrist. Donner's face twitched and he stepped back and away, holding the hand
straight out in front of him. He took out a handkerchief and wiped it off
carefully, dropped the handkerchief on the floor.

Sutro jerked and his mouth fell open. His eyes looked sick. The tall Filipino
flicked his empty automatic into his hand as if he had forgotten it was empty.
Noddy took a blunt revolver from under his right arm, held it out to Donner.

Donner took it from him and went back to Ricchio. He raised the gun.

Dalmas said: Ricchio didn't kill Walden."

The Filipino took a quick step forward and slashed at him with his big
automatic. The gun hit Dalmas on the point of the shoulder, and a wave of pain
billowed down his arm. He rolled away and snapped his Colt into his hand. The
Filipino swung at him again, missed.

Dalmas slid to his feet, side-stepped and laid the barrel of the Colt along
the side of the Filipino's head, with all his strength. The Filipino grunted,
sat down on the floor, and the whites showed all around his eyes. He fell over
slowly, clawing at the divan.

There was no expression on Donner's face and he held his blunt revolver
perfectly still. His long upper lip was beaded with sweat.

Dalmas said: "Ricchio didn't kill Walden. Walden was killed with a filed
gun and the gun was planted in his hand. Ricchio wouldn't go within a block of a
filed gun."

Sutro's face was ghastly. The sandy-haired man had got down off his stool and
stood with his right hand swinging at his side.

"Tell me more," Donner said evenly.

"The filed gun traces to a broad named Helen Dalton or Burwand,"
Dalmas said. "It was her gun. She told me that she hocked it long ago. I
didn't believe her. She's a good friend of Sutro's and Sutro was so bothered by
my going to see her that he pulled a gat on me himself. Why do you suppose Sutro
was bothered, Donner, and how do you suppose he knew I was likely to go see the
broad?"

Donner said: "Go ahead and tell me." He looked at Sutro very
quietly.

Dalmas took a step closer to Donner and held his Colt down at his side, not
threateningly.

"I'll tell you how and why. I've been tailed ever since I started to
work for Walden-tailed by a clumsy ox of a studio dick I could spot a mile off.
He was bought, Dormer. The guy that killed Walden bought him. He figured the
studio dick had a chance to get next to me, and I let him do just that-to give
him rope and spot his game. His boss was Sutro. Sutro killed Walden-with his own
hand. It was that kind of a job. An amateur job-a smart-aleck kill. The thing
that made it smart was the thing that gave it away-the suicide plant, with a
filed gun that the killer thought couldn't be traced because he didn't know most
guns have numbers inside."

Donner swung the blunt revolver until it pointed midway between the
sandy-haired man and Sutro. He didn't say anything. His eyes were thoughtful and
interested.

Dalmas shifted his weight a little, on to the balls of his feet. The Filipino
on the floor put a hand along the divan and his nails scratched on the leather.

"There's more of it, Donner, but what the hell! Sutro was Walden's pal,
and he could get close to him, close enough to stick a gun to his head and let
go. A shot wouldn't be heard on the penthouse floor of the Kilmarnock, one
little shot from a thirty-two. So Sutro put the gun in Walden's hand and went on
his way. But he forgot that Walden was left-handed and he didn't know the gun
could be traced. When it was-and his bought man wised him up-and I tapped the
girl-he hired himself a chopper squad and angled all three of us out to a house
in Palms to button our mouths for good . . . Only the chopper squad, like
everything else in this play, didn't do its stuff so good."

Donner nodded slowly. He looked at a spot in the middle of Sutro's stomach
and lined his gun on it.

"Tell us about it, Johnny," he said softly. "Tell us how you
got clever in your old age-"

The sandy-haired man moved suddenly. He dodged down behind the desk and as he
went down his right hand swept for his other gun. It roared from behind the
desk. The bullet came through the kneehole and pinged into the wall with a sound
of striking metal behind the paneling.

Dalmas jerked his Colt and fired twice into the desk. A few splinters flew.
The sandy-haired man yelled behind the desk and came up fast with his gun
flaming in his hand. Donner staggered. His gun spoke twice, very quickly. The
sandy-haired man yelled again, and blood jumped straight out from one of his
cheeks. He went down behind the desk and stayed quiet.

Donner backed until he touched the wall. Sutro stood up and put his hands in
front of his stomach and tried to scream.

Donner said: "Okey, Johnny. Your turn."

Then Donner coughed suddenly and slid down the wall with a dry rustle of
cloth. He bent forward and dropped his gun and put his hands on the floor and
went on coughing. His face got gray.

Sutro stood rigid, his hands in front of his stomach, and bent back at the
wrists, the fingers curved clawlike. There was no light behind his eyes. They
were dead eyes. After a moment his knees buckled and he fell down on the floor
on his back.

Donner went on coughing quietly.

Dalmas crossed swiftly to the door of the room, listened at it, opened it and
looked out. He shut it again quickly.

"Soundproof-and how!" he muttered.

He went back to the desk and lifted the telephone off its prongs. He put his
Colt down and dialed, waited, said into the phone: "Captain Cathcart ...
Got to talk to him . . . Sure, it's important . . . very important."

He waited, drumming on the desk, staring hard-eyed around the room. He jerked
a little as a sleepy voice came over the wire.

"Dalmas, Chief. I'm at the Casa Mariposa, in Gayn Donner's private
office. There's been a little trouble, but nobody hurt badye got Derek Walden's
killer for you . . . Johnny Sutro did it . . . Yeah, the councilman . . . Make
it fast, Chief. . . I wouldn't want to get in a fight with the help, you know

He hung up and picked his Colt off the top of the desk, held it on the flat
of his hand and stared across at Sutro.

"Get off the floor, Johnny," he said wearily. "Get up and tell
a poor dumb dick how to cover this one up-smart guy!"

TEN

The light above the big oak table at Headquarters was too bright. Dalmas ran
a finger along the wood, looked at it, wiped it off on his sleeve. He cupped his
chin in his lean hands and stared at the wall above the roll-top desk that was
beyond the table. He was alone in the room.

The loudspeaker on the wall droned: "Calling Car 71W in 72's district .
. . at Third and Berendo . . . at the drugstore . . . meet a man . .

The door opened and Captain Cathcart came in, shut the door carefully behind
him. He was a big, battered man with a wide, moist face, a strained mustache,
gnarled hands.

He sat down between the oak table and the roll-top desk and fingered a cold
pipe that lay in the ashtray.

Dalmas raised his head from between his hands. Cathcart said: "Sutro's
dead."

Dalmas stared, said nothing.

"His wife did it. He wanted to stop by his house a minute. The boys
watched him good but they didn't watch her. She slipped him the dose before they
could move."

Cathcart opened and shut his mouth twice. He had strong, dirty teeth.

"She never said a damn word. Brought a little gun around from behind her
and fed him three slugs. One, two, three. Win, place, show. Just like that. Then
she turned the gun around in her hand as nice as you could think of and handed
it to the boys . . . What in hell she do that for?"

Dalmas said: "Get a confession?"

Cathcart stared at him and put the cold pipe in his mouth. He sucked on it
noisily. "From him? Yeah-not on paper, though . . . What you suppose she
done that for?"

"She knew about the blonde," Dalmas said. "She thought it was
her last chance. Maybe she knew about his rackets."

The captain nodded slowly. "Sure," he said. "That's it. She
figured it was her last chance. And why shouldn't she bop the bastard? If the
D.A. 's smart, he'll let her take a manslaughter plea. That'd be about fifteen
months at Tehachapi. A rest cure."

Dalmas moved in his chair. He frowned.

Cathcart went on: "It's a break for all of us. No dirt your way, no dirt
on the administration. If she hadn't done. it, it would have been a kick in the
pants all around. She ought to get a pension."

"She ought to get a contract from Eclipse Films," Dalmas said.
"When I got to Sutro I figured I was licked on the publicity angle. I might
have gunned Sutro myself-if he hadn't been so yellow-and if he hadn't been a
councilman."

"Nix on that, baby. Leave that stuff to the law," Cathcart growled.
"Here's how it looks. I don't figure we can get Walden on the book as a
suicide. The filed gun is against it and we got to wait for the autopsy and the
gun-shark s report. And a paraffin test of the hand ought to show he didn't fire
the gun at all. On the other hand, the case is closed on Sutro and what has to
come out ought not to hurt too bad. Am I right?"

Dalmas took out a cigarette and rolled it between his fingers. He lit it
slowly and waved the match until it went out.

"Walden was no lily," he said. "It's the dope angle that would
raise hell-but that's cold. I guess we're jake, except for a few loose
ends."

"Hell with the loose ends," Cathcart grinned. "Nobody's
getting away with any fix that I can see. That sidekick of yours, Denny, will
fade in a hurry and if I ever get my paws on the Dalton frail, I'll send her to
Mendocino for the cure. We might get something on Donner-after the hospital gets
through with him. We've got to put the rap on those hoods, for the stick-up and
the taxi driver, whichever of 'em did that, but they won't talk. They still got
a future to think about, and the taxi driver ain't so bad hurt. That leaves the
chopper squad." Cathcart yawned. "Those boys must be from Frisco. We
don't run to choppers around here much."

Dalmas sagged in his chair. "You wouldn't have a drink, would you,
Chief?" he said dully.

Cathcart stared at him. "There's just one thing," he said grimly.
"I want you to stay told about that. It was okey for you to break that
gun-if you didn't spoil the prints. And I guess it was okey for you not to tell
me, seem' the jam you were in. But I'll be damned if it's okey for you to beat
our time by chiselin' on our own records."

Dalmas smiled thoughtfully at him. "You're right all the way,
Chief," he said humbly. "It was the job-and that's all a guy can
say."

Cathcart rubbed his cheeks vigorously. His frown went away and he grinned.
Then he bent over and pulled out a drawer and brought up a quart bottle of rye.
He put it on the desk and pressed a buzzer. A very large uniformed torso came
part way into the room.

"Hey, Tiny!" Cathcart boomed. "Loan me that corkscew you
swiped out of my desk." The torso disappeared and came back.